A Stone Most Rare
by OneShotRevolt
Summary: Many thousands of years ago, in a far away realm, two young girls stumble into places that should best be left a secret. A short story about how Kitana and Jade first meet.


When they first met, she was sitting on the wall. This in itself was impressive, as the wall was fifteen foot high and permeated with a magical barrier meant to repel legions. She sat casually, almost lazily, as if she somehow did not know that it bordered the palace of eternal kings. Kitana had never seen anything like her before. Her skin was brown, her hair the ragged black of hawthorn bushes and her eyes were all mixed up in mischief. Her clothes looked like they had seen many thunderstorms and not many wash tubs.

Kitana was not at all sure of what to say to such an anomaly, so she said nothing at all. She let her eyes fall back to her book and continued reading under the brushed branches of a pale elm.

The problem was that the next day, the girl was back again. This irritated Kitana. The curiosity of one not schooled in etiquette could be over-looked once, but twice was almost habit, and certainly unseemly to say the least. The girl looked her straight in the eye and set her with a petulant dark look. Kitana shut her book, picked up the corner of her white dress. She stepped carefully to avoid mud and stood under the wall on which her intruder sat.

"Excuse me, but don't you know, this is the royal palace?"

"I know." Said the girl.

Kitana narrowed her eyes,

"You can't just sit on the wall like that."

"I can and I will."

The two girls locked eyes.

"Well, fine!" Kitana held her head high, "But don't say I didn't warn you if the guards catch you!"

"Are you reading?"

Kitana's face lit with indignation,

"I was, until you interrupted me!"

The intruder jumped down off the walk. Kitana dropped her book and started back in surprise. She nearly tripped over her robe and turned to call a guard, she paused however, on seeing the strange girl lean over the book. She peered at it upside down where it lay. She put out a finger to touch a page but stopped and looked at the dirt on her hands.

"And you can read those? Those letters?"

Kitana paused,

"Can... can you not?"

The girl's face darkened and she stood up, folding her arms.

"No, but I can do other things. Like get places I'm not meant to and scare spoiled princesses!"

Kitana frowned and her temper flared. She had a temper like her father. Her mother was always warning her away from it. She open her mouth to make a quick-fire retort, but then hesitated. She looked at the girl in her ragged clothes with her thunderstorm eyes and stubborn expression. There were quiet, afraid things hidden somewhere in that posture too. She let out her pent up breath more gently. She glanced about, checking no one important could see them,

"Well... if you like, I could show you how to read."

It was like the girl said, she could not read, but she could get to places she was not meant to. Later that afternoon, the book lay propped up on the elm trunk, while Kitana held her skirts as she sat on top of a wall with the strange girl, looking down to a gold trimmed window with mahoganny cut patterns in the shutters.

"Jade's a very precious stone, you know. It's a very bright green. Not anyone can wear jade. It's a strange name for someone like you all dressed in rags."

"One day I'll wear jade."

"Oh, sure." Kitana was huffy because Jade had told her climbing walls was more interesting than reading books and Kitana was secretly beginning to think she was right.

"I'm going in that window." Jade pointed with a scruffy arm and a dirty finger.

"What!? No! You can't!"

Jade had already jumped down. Kitana cursed her long dress and climbed down with difficulty after her.

" _Jade_. You can't!" She whispered ferociously. "My father's advisor works there! No one disturbs him, not even the servants!"

"I'm not a servant." Jade leapt up to the window sill and peered through the intricate woodwork into the dark room behind. She put her fingers into the latticework and pulled open one of the shutters.

" _Jade!_ Don't! He's a _sorcerer_ , one of the serving maids even told me he's not from this world!"

"Stop trying to scare me. Come and have a look at this!"

The tone in the girl's voice had changed so that it was all riddled with intrigue. _One look couldn't hurt_ , Kitana thought. She had always wondered what was behind that door.

The room was keen oiled dark wood like much of the palace interior, but where her mother favoured sparse décor and her father a well-placed battle trophy, the first advisor had no such aesthetic taste. Every wall was lined with book shelves, all crammed full. Even most of the windows were half obscured by stacks that would fit no where else. Long tables stretched the length of the room all filled parchment and ink and notes. What caught had caught Jade's eye were a set giant skeletal gold globes rotating alone on brass stands that winked in the light let in by their window.

"What are those? How do they move?"

"I said he's a sorcerer. We've seen what's here, now lets go!"

"We haven't see what's in that room." A secondary wing led off to their right.

"We don't need to see what's in there! My father will be so angry if he finds out we're in here. He's frightening when he's angry, let's just leave."

"And your sorcerer might turn us into pigs! I'd rather be a hawk." Jade grabbed her hand and pulled her in.

"I'm a princess! You can't just pull me this way and that!" They fell into the room and landed on a luscious rug inscribed with symmetrical curls. It smelt of dust and secrets.

"Is that a trap door?" From her new vantage point of upside-down on the floor, Jade screwed up her eyes and tilted her head. "What does someone want a trapdoor for in a room that no one's allowed in." She jumped up.

Kitana let out a huff and straightened down her dress. She regretted choosing to wear her white one today. There was green from the wall down one side and brown from the mud on her boot where she had stepped on the hem. From now on she'd wear her dark blue dress if she had to go on any more godsforsaken adventures.

"Come and help me!" Jade was tugging at a large iron ring set into a wooden trapdoor. The trapdoor wood was so close in colour to the floorboards, Kitana could only guess how Jade had spotted it. Together they put their weight into it and pulled. Kitana set her teeth together and wrinkled her nose. She looked down at her small pale arms pulling next to Jade's dark arms. They were the same size. She had never met someone her own age before.

The trapdoor heaved open and sent the two girls flying. Jade went head over heels and ended up propped against a table leg with her legs in the air. Kitana got caught up in her dress again and it ripped as she fell. She landed hard on her bottom. The sharp pain and the torn dress all seemed to much in that moment and she felt her nose heat up and her eyes water.

" _Woah!_ " Jade turned her wrong-way up head sideways. Kitana forgot to be upset as she followed her friend's gaze. A dim red glow came from the yawning mouth of the trapdoor. Kitana stood up proudly and ripped off the rest of the hem that had torn. She tied it about her waist and stuffed the edge of her dress in the new belt, leaving her legs free below the knees.

"Princesses sure wear silly clothes."

"Quiet." She said imperiously, secretly vowing never to wear silly clothes ever again. Jade's boyish short tunic looked much more practical.

They both picked their way cautiously over to the door. A long flight of stone steps led down into darkness lit only by that faint ethereal red glow.

"Did you say a sorcerer lived here?" Jade whispered.

 _Now she listens!_

"Yes," Kitana put her hands on her hips, "But I'm not afraid." She took the first step. Her thick-soled slippers clacked loudly on the stone. She and Jade looked each other. Kitana bent down and undid her shoes. She stuffed them into her belt along with her dress hem. The stone was cold under her toes. She found herself holding her breath as she took the next step.

"I'm not scared either!" Jade noticeably had not moved from the trapdoor entrance, "But where's that red light coming from?"

Kitana rolled her eyes and continued down the steps. Three, four, five. She could feel the rough surface prickling at the soft pads of her small feet. Red light illumined sheer rock walls all rough hewn with shadows that fell irregularly and blended shapes into the dark. She shivered and took a shaky breath. She would be in trouble for this. _If they find out_. That little voice in her head sounded a lot like Jade and not at all like her. Or did it. Some part of her was ignited by the danger and mystery around her. She heard a slight tap behind her. She whirled round, nearly losing her footing. Jade had jumped onto the top step.

"Careful!"

"You scared me half to death."

"Watch where you're going then!"

"I thought you were to scared to come."

"What? I'm just here to make sure you don't slip and die while I'm blamed for your death!"

"If I slip and die it'll because you made me with all your jumping about"

"The red is brightest over there."

The light was filtering through from behind a rough shadowy wall. Its edges were lit up like they were on fire by the light. Kitana and Jade tip-toed down to the bottom of the stairs. The floor was all smooth flagstone and brilliantly cold under their toes. The soft rumble of bubbling water murmured from further ahead. Kitana wrinkled her nose.

"What's that smell?!"

"Bad eggs." Jade pushed past her and stuck her head round the corner. She went quiet. Kitana followed. The room that opened before them was enormous, much bigger than should be possible given the short flight of steps they had taken down. Ribbed roofs like cathedrals built of whale bone climbed high above them until they where lost in darkness. Cabinets of shelves winked with a thousand bottles all dim and aglow with faint residue. A pit cut deep in the floor glared red and circular and danced with the tongues of a strange fire, whose flames licked no wood and did not dwindle.

Jade's voice was very small in her ear,

"What is this place?"

Kitana swallowed and puffed out her chest with pride and all the bravery she did not feel. She stepped out of the doorway and into the hall. She walked towards the fire, determined to discovered what gave it such a vibrant, startling quality. Her pace slowed as she walked toward it however. Vines like the wending creepers from the forests wound through the air above her. She narrowed her eyes and squinted. They were not vines by chains, with enormous black iron links all criss-crossing in every direction. She glanced about her. The walls were so far apart and the light so dim that the room itself fade to total darkness before she could see its limits.

"Jade?" Her voices sounded thin and reedy in the echoey silence.

"I'm here." Her heart leapt in relief when she saw the girl hurry out of the darkness towards her. Jade's eyes were gentle on seeing Kitana's fear. Kitana immediately straightened her back again and set her brow proud. She took a bold step forward. Jade looked up,

"Whatever are all those chains for?"

Kitana did not answer. The oddly flat flames of the fire pit were hypnotic in their repetitive dances. Jade grasped her hand suddenly. Her fingers were cold.

" _Up there! There's something up there!_ "

Her whisper was hoarse and urgent. Kitana stopped and followed her finger. There was a shape amid the strings of chains. It was stretched, hung out, like clothes to dry. Four limbs long and pulled with the arms open as if in delicate flight, but the spinal curve weighted and broken and bent. And now that she was close enough, she saw the red light move across its half-there body. Something dangled out of its middle where a stomach should have been and instead of skin it seemed to just be fibrous ropey muscles sagging like wilted greens cut and left too long in the sun. And all she could wonder was _where is the rest of its body? where is the rest of its body?_ And the shadow underneath like a stolen bat cast strong on the girders of a steel table all red from _was it the light or is that something else_ with tools all laid out about its edges, wicked knives for cutting and mean things with hooks for poking, and the hall screaming as they ran even though she knew it was just their two voices bouncing off the walls of that empty dead place.

Open arms and red velvet bordered in gold. She wrapped her arms tight about the waist as far as she could reach and pushed her face into the soft robes until the warmth and dark hid her tears and stuffed up the sound of her sobbing.

"Princess, princess! What are you doing here?" A gentle hand on her shoulder, steadying its stuttering and shuddering. She clung on tighter and tried not to think of the body with no insides and the red table and expression caught in the shadowed lines of the face.

"Sh-shang Tsung there's someone there! There's someone flying in the dark!" Her voice was all trembly and not at all proper and she hated how its sounded.

"Hush little one, hush. There's nothing there. Nothing there at all."

"There was and there is!" A fierce voice piped up. Kitana turned her red eyes to look. Jade was crouched by the doorway, all spindly like a spider and looking up at the first advisor with terror writ in her big dark eyes.

"And who is this?" All the warmth Kitana knew in the first advisor ran cold and flat. His words were barren dust and made Jade back further into the wall.

"I-its my fault, Shang Tsung," Kitana stood straight and brushed her eyes with the back of her hand., "I asked her to come exploring with me."

The first advisor was silent.

"Let's go back upstairs." His voice had not quite regained all its gentleness, but Kitana nodded gratefully. Jade still would not move. She had her back arched like a cat and she followed the first advisor only with her eyes. Kitana took her hand and she quieted a little. They followed him up the stone steps and back into the wood room. Its light seemed bright and its book shelves warm. The first advisor let the trapdoor fall back too with a resounding _thud_ that made both girls jump. Kitana looked down at the ground. Her toes were blue from the cold and trailed black patchy footprints where she had stepped.

"I'm sorry." She mumbled into her chest.

She looked up at the first advisor. He was young with vibrant black hair and a smart, pointed beard. His expression was unreadable. Kitana glance quickly back down, but continued her confession,

"Like I said, it's my fault. Please don't be angry at my friend. Please don't tell my father."

She glanced at Jade. She too was silent. Her face looked angry and stubborn and Kitana prayed that she would not intervene and make this all harder with the truth.

"I... am a little disappointed, Princess. You are aware that this room is off limits, are you not?"

"Yes..." She was shy and embarrassed and could feel her nose going pink like it did before she was going to cry.

"It would disappoint your father a great deal to hear of your disobedience."

Kitana's breath caught and she looked up with pleas in her eyes,

"D-don't-"

"But I think I can keep a secret if you can, Princess."

"What secret?! I can keep a secret, Shang Tsung!"

The first advisor tilted his head toward the trapdoor.

"Sometimes I need a little extra space to research for your father. Not everyone understands how important research is, Princess Kitana. It would be best if this place stayed our secret."

She glowed with pride. Often her father would send her or other important dignitaries or even her mother away so that he could consult privately with his first advisor. To have such a great honour bestowed upon her made her warm with resolve.

"Of course!" She said.

"It's a shame that dress won't stay a secret from your mother though."

Kitana looked down at her ruined white dress still tucked into the ripped belt along with her shoes. She set about desperately making amends.

"A swift exit via the window might be prudent, Princess. That's the quickest way back towards your quarters, I should think."

Kitana nodded her thanks and hurried towards the window.

"Thanks, Shang Tsung. I promise we won't tell." She hopped on one foot as she put her shoes back on and jumped through the window.

Jade's eyes settled on Shang Tsung's. A black look levelled between them. Jade set her teeth together as she regarded the sorcerer, writing the moment into her memory. She turned and followed Kitana.

* * *

 **Author Note:** I don't normally take requests, but windleopard asked for a story about Kitana and Jade growing up together back in November and it piqued my interest :) Had some ideas bouncing around for a while and decided to write this little thing. Might even continue it some day, who knows. For now its just a one-shot. My first time writing these two, so hopefully they're still recognisable even though they're very young.


End file.
